I recently installed WordPress 2.7 on another site that I’m working on, and I thought it was great!  However, there are apprently some big changes in this version, so I could have problems getting my site up and running again!

In reality, you shouldn’t notice any changes to the site itself, apart from an improvement in performance.  However, the improvements to the admin interface are huge!

There are also a large number of new plugins which have been developed solely for version 2.7 which I’m confident will make your experience of John’s Tech Blog more rewarding.

So what am I doing to prepare for this upgrade?

Backups

My first step will be take backups.  I’ll backup the site itself by logging directly onto a shell at my host and using the UNIX command line to backup all the files (using tar).  I’ll then use the phpMySQLAdmin utility to dump all my data tables out to a SQL file (WordPress has a great description of how to do this here).  Luckily, I set a unique prefix for the tables relating to this blog, so they’re easily accesible!

The Upgrade

One of the things that WordPress are famous for is their quick installations and upgrades.  A complete description of the simple process is available here.  In theory, this should be a painless step….!

Bringing Site Back

The final step is to bring the site back online.  Again, this should be fairly straightforward, but you need to only activate plugins one at a time, in order to be confident.  I use the fantastic “Maintenance Mode” plugin which will be the first one activated.  This should allow me to test the rest of the upgrade before any visitors see my site.

So this should all be a fairly painless exercise.  Check back tomorrow to find out if it was….!

WISH ME LUCK!